


Another Chance

by no_nutcracker



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:33:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29221026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_nutcracker/pseuds/no_nutcracker
Summary: It all starts during that war against the saxons.The first one when Morgaine had left Camelot and Arthur to fend for themselves, found the faes and lost years of her life.The one where Arthur lost faith in the goddess (whom he always considered to be Morgaine) and listened to his wife's disturbed ramblings (when Gwenhwyfar was herself brainwashed or at least guilty-tripped by her preacher).What if Morgaine had heard Arthur's calls for her and it was enough to wake her up from the fae's trance?She'd arrive in time to stop Gwenhwyfar from tipping the scales (Arthur's faith) in her favor.
Relationships: Gwenhwyfar/Arthur, Morgaine/Arthur, Morgan le Fay/Arthur Pendragon, mentions of Gwenhwyfar/Lancelet
Kudos: 3





	Another Chance

'Arthur, please, listen to me. You have to unite the kingdoms under one banner. No one will follow you with those savages around and all will be lost! Please.'

'She's right,' a voice resounds loudly in the room.

All heads turn to the room's entrance to find a petite figure with it's face hidden by a hood.

'You have to make a choice,' the voice continues.

Tiny pale hands come to push off the hood to reveal a pale, fairy face.

A known and beloved face.

'Morgaine,' whispers Arthur in what can only be described as worship.

'Hello, dear brother,' Morgaine replies with an impish grin and a tiny nod of the head, her own way of bowing to the King, her brother.

*

'And where have you been?,' questions the Queen with all the imperious nobility she can muster after those long agonising weeks under siege (and her hatred for that _woman_ ).

'Here and there,' answers Morgaine with carelessness, seemingly gliding across the room to join them. 

Gwenhwyfar can only watch as Arthur walks to his sister (leaves her) to meet Morgaine halfway.

''Here and there' is not an acceptable answer when questioned by your queen,' she continues haughtily.

'My apologies, your Highness,' she says, her sweet voice dripping with false sincerity.

The worst is that Morgaine isn't even using the title to address her. It's used for Arthur only, as if Gwenhwyfar is not worthy of it. 

A mischievous grin appears on Morgaine's face as Gwenhwyfar's husband takes her small wrists in his hands with delicacy and places a tender kiss on each of them.

As always, watching the two of them makes her uncomfortable.

Arthur raises his head at his sister's eyes level and smiles back at her: 'You've been missed, sister.'

*

It is well into the night, after countless hours spent talking about a new course of action, that they take their separate ways. Gwenhwyfar, whose fire has burned as bright as the sun but slowly faded as the night chased the light, returns to cloister herself in her rooms with her servant and the catholic preacher. Arthur doesn't glance at her. He offers his left arm to Morgaine who takes it with mirth in her eyes and guides her to his part of the abode.

Their walk is a short, quiet one. He enjoys it all the same. It has been so long since his sister and he shared the same space. He had missed her presence since the moment she departed. Not a day passed that he didn't think of her. These last weeks especially, his longing had turned into religious expectation and threatened to turn into despair. Morgaine was the reason he kept fighting even when it seemed all hope was lost. She was who he believed in, his own personal goddess.

(He is ashamed to think his hopelessness, coupled with Gwenhwyfar's tormented one, may have turned him from Her and pushed him to do some reprehensible act to end that war, had his wait lasted any longer. He shudders inwardly. 

Never again.

Arthur shall never be caught losing faith in Morgaine again.)

Now she's here and it seems like her luminous presence is drawing all of the castle's darkness away. 

*

He takes her to the rooms closest to his.

If Morgaine is disappointed by the pitiful state her rooms are in, she doesn't comment upon it. All the castle's rooms are in this state since he demanded his people quits them for their own safety.

If he had had his way, Gwenhwyfar would be long gone too. Camelot could not handle to lose its King _and_ its Queen. Arthur is touched by the devotion and fervent loyalty his wife shows him every new day she refuses to leave. But he is also frustrated by her decision. Can't she see he's doing it for her welfare? What will happen if their enemies succeed in entering the fortress and find them? What if- 

Arthur is shaken from these ruminations by the feel of something soft and warm between his eyebrows. He opens eyes he had not realised he had closed to see Morgaine standing right in front of him, her thumb playing lightly on his face.

'Chase those dark pansies, brother mine,' she demands, concern shining in her dark eyes. 'There's no need to plight your face with nasty wrinkles. We are well on our way to win this war. The Gods stand with us,' she vows.

 ** _Believe_** , her eyes beseech him.

Arthur smiles. He believes. He believes in Morgaine and whatever future she will create for them.

 _It seems that his memory has failed the both of them, as she is even more bewitching that it had painted her_.

*

'Gwenhwyfar was right,' he starts, ignoring her scoff, 'you didn't answer her question. Where were you, Morgaine?'

A few tensed seconds pass before she answers: 'With the Faes.'

'Morgaine of the Faeries,' he teases.

Morgaine doesn't respond to his playful tone. She continues to stand there, her back now turned to him. Unreachable. It is the first time she acts like this since her return, like they are thousands miles away. 

Arthur does not like it.

'I forgot,' she finally lets out, her voice bland. It is chilling him. 'Their world is so different from ours, Arthur. Everything there is so... intangible. So fleeting. Times flies by, right past you, and before I knew it I had missed years there.'

Arthur is frozen, mind blank. Morgaine had been lost to him? Without his knowledge?

His fright is suddenly replaced by something hard and burning, coiled inside him. He distantly recognises it as hatred. He's filled to the brim with it, wonders how his body does not explodes from it and paints the rooms' walls red with his royal blood. 

He hates that she was lost to him and he didn't even know. Hates those creatures for taking her from him and getting away with it. Hates that he can't join her now in the terrible memories of her captivity. Hates that she won't let him hold her and offer her comfort. 

He should have known, should have felt it.

What if he had never seen Morgaine again? What if she had disappeared for years, decades? _What if he had been campaigning in the woods only to stumble upon her dead body?_

'I do not regret finding them,' she continues, her calm voice cutting into his fury like a fine sword. 'I had to leave. I **needed** to. I just- I had nowhere to go and being found by the Faes allowed me that escape. I just wish I had not lost all this time.'

'So... You don't regret it?,' he is perplexed by this. The faes didn't stole Morgaine from him?

She turns to face him. Her features are hard but her eyes are glistening with unshed tears.

 _He wishes he could kiss those tears away_.

'I loved it, Arthur,' she fervently declares. 'It is... I cannot describe it, it is. Like,' she pursues her lips in concentration, 'like a dream. It feels real and phantasmic at the same time. You know.'

He does not.

'I remember laughter and dancing, so much of it my heart was bursting with it. I wish I had never left,' she ends, melancholic.

Arthur's own heart is painfully tight in his chest.

'Then why did you come back?,' he asks in a low tone.

'Because I heard your voice,' she replies, her sharp eyes digging in his. 'You were calling for me.'

He had been. Calling for her from the deep recesses of his mind. During meetings. On the morrow. At twilight. At night in the dark of his rooms. **Praying** for her to come back.

'I could have never ignore your calls. So I left,' she relates carelessly. Like she has not just admitted she had lived in what amounts to the catholics' idea of heaven and left it for him. 

'And now I am here,' she assures him with a growing smile on her face. He is beyond relieved to see it reflected in her warm eyes. 'And I am not leaving you, brother.'

He feels his very being being filled with warmth and _the love he only gives Morgaine_.

*

On the second night, Morgaine once again turns Arthur's world upside-down.

He is recounting his side of the last years' happenings, and how he's come to pray relentlessly for his beloved sister's return, when Morgaine puts a halting hand between them and announces: 'I have to be honest, your voice wasn't the only one I heard.'

Arthur frowns, confused, before understanding fills him: 'Lancelet,' he says.

It should not surprise him. Morgaine and his knight have always been closed to one another. Arthur is acutely aware of how much his sister wanted that closeness to grow into something more.

To his knowledge, Lancelet never returned the sentiment. Truthfully, Arthur has never seen Lancelet being attracted to womankind. He distractedly wonders if it is because his knight is attracted to more... manly figures.

'No,' Morgaine dismisses.

Arthur hopes it means Morgaine has finally moved on from that infatuation.

'Our mother?'

Morgaine shakes her head, pinches her lips. 

Admittedly, it would have startled him. Neither Arthur nor his sister were closed to Igraine. Even, or should he say, _especially_ during their shared infancy.

'Our aunt?'

Morgaine pauses, then shakes her head once again. Arthur opens his mouth to continue his questioning when she interrupts his next attempt: 'It is someone you do not know.'

Arthur bends over the table standing between them. His eyes searching her shifty ones: 'If it is no one I know then why do you look so nervous, sister?'

Morgaine closes her eyes, inhales and exhales slowly. Once. Twice. On the third time, she opens her beautiful eyes again and buries her soulful gaze into his expecting one.

'My son,' she confesses.

Arthur doesn't move.

'I named him Gwydion. After you.'

An eternity seems to pass before Arthur finds the ability to speak again: 'Your... son?,' he slowly repeats.

'Once this war is won, I will go find him,' she continues.

Her pupils ablaze with that inner strength he loves so much. He cannot find it in himself to appreciate it this time. His heart has gone cold again. Nor from fear for Morgaine (not this time). Fear for himself and what that child's attendance will mean for their relationship. 

'I would appreciate it if you were to escort me.'

Arthur doesn't let his decompure show on his face. (He is sure Morgaine can see it anyway. She always knew everything about him, from his favorite fruit to his darkest struggles.)

Arthur nods.

'I will,' he breathes out.

Even if it signed his death.

*

The war is won. 

(Like he knew it would. Arthur never held any doubt since Morgaine came back to him.)

Both the pagans and the christians are safe.

(Neither side has been sacrificed for the other. They stand united under Arthur's Kingship.)

He calls back his men and his people for celebrations that last weeks.

(He does not take any joy from it.)

Once the merriment has slightly calmed, he sends them all back to Camelot. He assigns the knights of the Round Table to put order back to the Kingdom in his absence.

Gwenhwyfar, who has been acting cold with him since his sister's return (if not downright icy and bitter), is unsettled by his departure. He tries to reassure her. When he notices her agitation only keeps growing instead of diminishing and is getting obvious to the nobles, he promises her a very fast and safe return and appoints Lancelet to watch over her. It calms her immediately.

No doubt having a knight as irreprochable and duty-bound as Lancelet at her side will work wonders to appease his wife's despondent mind.

(He does not ask his sister why she sneers when he tells her of that last decision.)

They leave Camelot under the people's applause and heartfelt shouts.

(Arthur's long held worries bloom into agony the closer they get to Morgaine's child.)

*

Their journey is spent in silence.

*

Arthur looks at them: Morgaine of the Faeries and Gwydion the Fae, facing each other. They are so alike they could be confounded as siblings. Furthermore, when he looks closely, Arthur can find some of his own traits in the boy's features. It warms something inside him that has gone cold since Morgaine's reveal.

He could never be Morgaine's choice, nor have the chance of being this boy's father, but he can still be family.

He can be close to them and love them as much as Morgaine will allow.

*

'You must be so proud,' his aunt Morgause says from behind him.

'Proud?,' he inquires distractedly as he watches Morgaine put Gwydion in bed. 

Her hands are caressing his fair face, petting his dark shiny hair, warming his hands from the slight cold.

'Of Gwydion,' he hears his aunt add. 'He is such a bright boy. Just like his father.'

The last comment startles him from his contemplation: 'You know his father?,' he whispers.

Arthur feels the hair on the back of his neck rise. He does not know if it is a good thing or not. He doesn't know if he wants that man found so he can kill him for daring to despoil the King's sister or let him stay a nobody.

He feels a tremble taking hold of his hands and fights hard to steady them. He clenches and unclenches them until he has regained control of his members. 

He turns to face his aunt. Morgause is looking at him shrewdly.

'Is it a secret, King Arthur?,' she asks in what he knows is false obedience. 

The woman was never known for submission. It just does not run in the family, on either side. Something Morgaine and he are both exceedingly proud of. 

'Am I supposed to pretend not knowing of Gwydion's parentage even in close quarters?,' she continues.

'Why would it be a secret?,' he asks with more pressure.

'Because getting your sister with a child is unbecoming of a King? Or at least, it is what I have heard of christianity. The Egyptians, for one, have a completely different view on the matter.'

'Sister? Child?,' he repeats mystified.

He doesn't understand. She can _not_ be implying what he is thinking about.

Morgause searches his face with piercing eyes before she adds: 'You do know young Gwydion is your son, Arthur. Don't you?'

'No,' he lets out without meaning to.

No. She must be wrong. He must have heard wrong. There is no way Arthur is so blessed.

Morgause is not deterred and pursues, either because she does not notice or does not care that the High King, Arthur, her nephew is losing it. 'She came to me when she was expecting, unwilling of returning to the Isle or to your mother. I welcomed her and assisted her in her final months. It was a long labour. I honestly doubted she would survive the birth, but she did. They both did.'

He feels like he is in a battle, adrenaline fueling him, his mind focused on nothing but surviving, surviving, surviving. There's a buzz in his ears. Perspiration on his front. His heart is beating so fast it is threatening to rip his chest apart and leave him for better countries.

It cannot be. 

'She decided it would be best for the both of them, or maybe for the three of yo-'

Morgause pauses when he puts a hand between them, signaling her to stop. Arthur takes advantage of the ensuing silence to calm himself. He is not in the midst of a battle. His life is not one threat away to be ripped off his body. And yet-

Arthur turns back to the view the ajar door gifts him with. Of Morgaine caressing Mordred's hair. Her son. _Their_ son. Because Arthur is Mordred's father. Not some faceless man, not (as he had feared) Lancelet's. Him. **Arthur**. Morgaine gifted him with a child.

(A knot of guilt and shame unfurls in his stomach. One made from the absence of any child between his lawful-wife and him. He is relieved that the fault does not lie with him.)

Once he has taken back ahold of peace -and a root of deep sheer contentment has taken a firm place inside of him-, he gestures for his aunt to continue. 

'Morgaine let me handle Gwydion's education.'

Arthur nods.

'I am pleased to see her with a changed mind. Free of doubts and fear.'

'Fear?,' he questions.

What would Morgaine, Priestess of Avalon, sister of the High King Arthur and princess of the Realm, have to fear?

Morgause doesn't respond: 'I know Morgaine is capable of handling herself. But she doesn't understand the kind of world we leave in, dear nephew. She might encounter someone less open-minded than those of your court. And your son,' she pauses on the word, letting him take it with relish, 'definitely needs his father's guidance.'

'Yes, I know you will take good care of them,' she repeats before leaving the room.

Arthur still has his back to her, so he doesn't see the slowly growing triumphant smirk on her face. 

He wouldn't care anyway. Morgause, by telling him that truth, just handed him his wildest dream on a platter. He's certainly not going to reject it. 

Neither will he let his court, the christian one he is sure Morgause was alluding to which is _very_ against any relationship between siblings (even royal ones), take it from him.

In fact, it looks like Arthur has a new war to fight. This time it is against his own people's prejudices. And he will not let the catholics, nor the nobles nor, gods forbid, Gwenhwyfar from preventing him to win it. 

He will fight only with Morgaine and Mordred in mind. 

And he will win.


End file.
